Canon Inspired 2012 Commercial – What’s the Song?

Canon pays homage to overzealous photographers in a humorous new commercial that fittingly makes use of a dreamy pop ballad called 'Beautiful Dreamer.' The woman singing the classic tune is Rachel Fannan of the band Only You.

The ad starts with a glimpse of a man precariously balancing on the edge of a roof with a video camera. That's followed by a giraffe chasing an angry woman, who continues to film as she goes. It becomes clear that the theme of the commercial is people being inspired to take pictures using their Canon EOS Rebel T4i cameras, even if they go overboard in their efforts to get the ultimate shot.

The funniest scene depicts a mother knocking a bowl of food onto the floor in order to clear space to get an extreme closeup of her daughter blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. Meanwhile, a camera-wielding cave explorer gets attacked by bats when he takes a pic and his flash goes off.

'Beautiful Dreamer' was a wise choice for the ad, since the juxtaposition of Fannan's tender voice and the slow pace of the song with the unexpected comedy makes the commercial more memorable than if Canon had gone with a generic up-tempo rock song.

Fannan's recording of 'Beautiful Dreamer' does not appear to be commercially available at the moment. She recorded her cover for the ad in conjunction with White Iris Records. The song was first published way back in 1864 by Stephen Foster, the composer of hundreds of other well-known Americana tunes, among them 'Oh Susanna' and 'Camptown Races.'